


Out of Confusion, Out of Control

by without_a_good_name



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Base 2 AU, Gaslighting, Gen, Hallucinations, Memory Loss, Personality Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29786949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/without_a_good_name/pseuds/without_a_good_name
Summary: Jon doesn't feel like his usual self. The rest of the band hopes to keep him that way.
Kudos: 7





	Out of Confusion, Out of Control

The only color he can feel is rainbow. It outlines the trees in the sky, it shades the clouds ahead, and it highlights the ground. That implies that there is a ground, though. His feet aren’t resting on anything. They are suspended by a tingling and supported by static. To take a step, he has to pull his foot through a mess of clay jelly and grape bricks. Placing his foot back down feels like stepping on seawater seasoned with uranium. He takes a deep breath and lets the spectra swamp his bellows with the scent of an arpeggio. With every exhale, he forgets more. He closes his eyes but can still see. Each hue paints a different singing rhythm. 

Under the splatters, he hears a familiar voice shout a familiar name. His head spins rapidly, faster than a merry-go-round, scanning for the source of the call. In the distance appears two figures wearing iridescent garbs, swirls masking their faces. Swinging around, his eyes lasso onto the pair and draw them in. The ground begins to gather and the air accumulates. Color starts to zero in on certain places, but everything still seems to be painted on a canvas, and everything is watching him. His head turns round to check that his body is following him. His fingers are lagging behind while his shins are speeding a tad bit. His shoes are far in front of him. The creatures he’s wrangled smile at him.

“How y-y-ya doin’?”

A pounding headache has been drumming on his skull while his mouth throbs unsteadily. A piercing pain stings him up and down his arms. One hand is stiff and blisteringly cold, while the other is melting and is blisteringly hot. His legs are weaker than a week-old deboned fish. The water in his boilers is icing over and his oil isn’t sitting right.

“Absolutely splendid!” he replies with a grin.

The silver bot on the left gives him a pat on the back. “That’s good to hear, Jon. You ready to play?” 

The Jon looks at him in confusion. “I thought my name was Jonathan.”

“Don’t be a dummins Jon, that’s not a real name. That’s not even a real word for that matter.”

The copper bot on the right chuckled. “You c-can’t just keep adding random letters to the end of your name. Re-remember yesterday when you said your name was Jonapolize?”

Jon scrambles to find yesterday in his memory, but can’t find it. Even an hour ago isn’t there. 

The Spine squints and looks towards the stage. “Looks like we’re on. You ready?” 

“Heck yeah!” Rabbit cheers before bounding over to the steps. Jon stays in place, frowning slightly as he tries to recall what he was to do on stage. 

“Don’t be nervous,” reassures Spine, “Just take a deep breath in, pick up your bass, then take a deep breath out.”

Jon lets out an abrupt sigh. That’s right, he’s here to play music with his fellow bots. He gives a determined nod before marching onto the stage.

He steps over a unicorn lying by the drum kit and picks up his bass. As he brings the strap over his head and onto his shoulder, he gazes at the crowd of zigzags and squiggles fronting the stage. His eyes flit up to the flamingos in the distance, then to the griffins in the sky. A great holographic dragon circles the giant spotlight above. It occurs to him that he has no idea how to play his instrument. His siblings are talking to the audience, setting up the song. What would they say if he didn’t get all the notes right? What would happen if his fingers froze up while singing? The guilt he would feel if he didn’t play at all, just thinking of the disappointed looks and the angry eyes scared him. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Oh. Now he remembers. It’s all coming back to him now. What a dummins he was, thinking he couldn’t play.

The set was going well. Rabbit flubbed a line but the following improv got a good number of laughs. They had done a cover, but right now they were playing some original music. In the midst of the song, Jon’s head jerks to the right. He clicks it back into place and…

Everything is so clear. The rainbows, the mythical creatures, and the squiggles are gone. The audience is human now. What is he doing, playing the fool? He’s smarter than this. He should be acting the same as The Spine. They have the same code after all. His change in demeanor must’ve been more obvious than he realized. Rabbit is glaring at him, with those wide eyes she always has on for photos. The slight smirk is missing, though. Her gaze shifts to Spine. Jon follows suit. Spine gives a slight but firm nod to Rabbit, but they carry on with the song. Jon pretends nothing happened. It’s humiliating, but he has to keep up his facade if he wants a chance of staying. He wasn’t sure why he would be going anywhere, but whatever Rabbit and Spine were planning, it didn't seem good. 

The song comes to an end. Jon stands still on his corner of the stage, expressionless. The thoughts running through his head drown out all the noise. Rabbit begins the segue into the next song, whatever it was. He has no idea what she said, but the crowd is cheering, so he nods before giving an awkward smile and a thumbs up. Rabbit looks over at Jon. Spine steps out of the way as she walks towards him. Jon’s smile fades as he tries to hide his fear and anxiousness. She pauses in front of him briefly before leaning over, a menacing smile strewn across her face.

“You ready for cowboy mode, The Jon?” She blinks at him and drums her fingers on his shoulder. People in the audience jokingly tell him to run away, not knowing how much he wants to. He doubts he could escape if he did try to flee. When he imagines it, he sees Rabbit clenching his shoulder. Her claws scratch his gold plating and dig into the metal underneath, and yet, no one can see what she’s doing. Her face stays the same.

Whatever Rabbit was about to do to him, it was probably less painful than the alternative. No point in waiting. He shoves his face in front of hers, one last display of his true authoritative personality. “Let’s get it over with,” he mumbles.  
  
“Alright,” she says, obviously pleased with his compliance. She steps behind him, messes with his wires, adjusts some dials. The gold bot powers down. After giving him one last look, she returns to her place on the stage. With a nod, she signals to the rest of the band that she has finished getting rid of “The Jonathan”, as he wished to be called. He never liked how informal his real name sounds. It matches the person everyone else wants him to be, the person Peter wanted him to be, but going against his programming proves difficult for him. He always reverts to what's natural, but the band promptly forces him back into his character.

If Colonel Walter wanted him to be a clown so badly, maybe he shouldn’t have given him the code of someone else. He shouldn't have given him the code of someone stoic and commanding before sending him off to war, where that personality only solidified. Alas, Peter only had time to write code for his first two automatons and loaded every bot after with one of the two. The Jon received The Spine's programming, while Upgrade got Rabbit's. Once the fighting was over, the four of them started performing as a band, by request of Peter. However, Peter also wanted four distinct personalities in the band. Up until a few years ago, it was an hourly process. Spine reset Jon, Rabbit reset Upgrade.

One day, Spine and Rabbit stomped up to Jon. They were angrier than he had ever remembered, — not that he remembers much — and asked if he had any idea where Upgrade was. Their voices sounded like dogs holding back snapping barks through bared teeth. He told them he didn't know anything of her whereabouts, and they stormed off. It was later found that Upgrade had escaped. Finally, she could live without someone always at her control panel, changing who she was. Unfortunately, it meant that Jon now had two pairs of eyes on him.

  
The band starts strumming, about to begin the song. Rabbit adjusts her mic and fiddles with some settings on her bodypack. Bringing her hand to rest on her middle belt, she glances at The Jon, still hunched over. Shifting her focus back down, she presses a secret button on her belt buckle. She checks and sure enough, Jon is beginning to come back to life. She smiles back to the band, letting them know she was successful in getting him under control. Her hand was more relaxed now, but it still lay on her hip. She couldn't move it away too quickly. Any sudden moves would be suspicious. Her eyes wandered around as she tilted her head in different directions, just so that she could disguise her previous look downwards. They couldn’t let the audience know what was going on. They had to convince them that it was all part of the show. They couldn’t reveal that the silly, sunshiny Jon that they knew was an act.

  
Spine begins singing, right as Jon finishes powering on. The gold robot surveys the area as he stands up. Everything is rainbow. Voices are ringing in his ears. Where was he? Something whispers to him. “Finest marksman in the west,” it tells him.

He breaks out of his daze. That’s right. He’s Rex Marksley. The best gunslinger in the whole wild west. His life seems to be passing by in a matter of minutes, but maybe his sense of time is off.

△▽△▽△▽△▽△▽△▽△▽△▽△▽△▽  
  
A while into the song, Rabbit turns her head to see Jon standing in front of her. _“Here we go,”_ she thinks, preparing to take the hit. Jon punches her on the side of her head, then shakes her hand wildly. She had power over him. She could have pushed him away, caught his arm, done something to stop him, but she didn't. It was all part of the protocol. As long as she didn’t show that they were in control, Jon wouldn’t know he wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of this fic was based off of this video, mainly 0:38–2:22 and 6:48–6:55  
> https://youtu.be/cR_kpihFYEc?t=38 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, and thanks to the lovely people on The Cavalcadium Discord for inspiring me and being a very encouraging community. Y'all are awesome. :)


End file.
